Originally posted by chocky
What did you like about Salt, FicusFan?
I am considering buying it would like an opinion.
I have to say first off that the writing style is very staid, and almost reminded me of 19th century in terms of stiffness. It is his first SF book.
What I liked was that the story is told by two main characters for most of the book. They alternate chapters and they are both 'unreliable narrators'. Which means that you can't trust or believe what they say, the way you can in a normal book. The reason is that each tells a part of the story from his own POV and often it is the same incident, and both can't be right ! Sometimes they lie to you, and sometimes they lie to themselves too. As the reader or the neutral party you can see where they went wrong, but you can also sometimes see the rightness of each side as well.
It makes you think about perception and reality, and how much your agenda is loaded into what you see as the truth. It also deal with preconcieved notions and prejudice and how they destroy any attempt at communication.
The story is about this group of religious (very little actual religion is in the story) pilgrims who are going to colonize a far-away planet. There are 5 or 6 space ships that are hooked onto a comet to power them along. They sleep for most of the journey. The captain of the most rigid and heriarchical ship is one narrator. The other narrator is the Engineer who can operate the comet hook, he is on a space ship of anarchists. They lied about having a religious orientation to get into the fleet. They completely reject any form of government.
The conflict is that the planet which from afar seemed fine, is really made of Salt, and so air and water and arable land are a problem. Because of their totally opposite viewpoints they are unable to cooperate. The personal interaction between the two crews during the flight also lead to disasterous consequences.
The Rigid society builds a cult of personality, and the anarchists act only for the individual.
It is a story of extremes. There are parts that show each leader and lifestyle in both good and bad lights, so you can't really just pick the one you feel is right or that you like the most.
It was a very thought provoking and interesting book. It made me think about it long after I finished it. I was also reading it during the height of the Isrealli/Palestinian crises and it seemed in many ways to mirror their conflict - thought the details are not exactly the same.
It is Adam Roberts best book so far. He has written Salt, On, Stone which I have read. Jupiter Magnified a novella, and Polystom his latest novel, which I have, but have not yet read.
Your id doesn't say where you are, so I don't know if you will have to pay more for the book (US) or not. You might want to test read before taking it home, if you can. Good luck and enjoy.
